Hobby Project - The Beat

Other Games
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I was very excited for that kickstarter. The only thing that scared me was the guy was starting to get pretty damn old, “BACK IN MY DAYYY…” so there are a lot of holes he wasn’t going to pick up on in regards to current police departments.

Zooka128 - this would be very easy. Currently the criminal literally takes the object that was robbed from a victim, once I get the searching, and different reactions to the player in place it should be rather interesting to see how they unfold and the choices the AI makes. (Surrender, Run, Flee, Fight / Use fire arm, Stab, Fist fight / Drop item (drugs, guns, knives), Have illegal items) Each / represents a different course of action that could be taken when a player encounters the AI. Giving AI randomly generated clothing colors, characteristics, items, and on top of that they already make a personal decision as to if they are going to commit a criminal act, and who they are going to do it on.

Newf - I hear ya, and I feel bad about it lately, but when I had more free time I was able to do a night cap of my progress and make a video and so forth. Since my times more limited now I’ve moved to simple talking about the game. Once I get more free time (not sure when this will be) I’ll be sure to make another video.

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Are you free on the weekends??? Please tell me your free on the Weekend!!!

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give the poor guy a break… he’s still trying to convince his wife to do the voice-over work… :smile:

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@SteveAdamo You’ve got to understand; he is very enthusiastic, a natural characteristic of dogs. Maybe a belly rub might make you feel better @Newf?

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we should take him to the dog park :dog:

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I would prefer a pig’s ear, they are very tasty

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How about the snout :pig_nose:? Or even the whole pig :pig2:?

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Three pigs and you got a deal

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:pig2: :pig2: :pig2: Here you go. Bark away.

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http://www.faniq.com/images/blog/Shut-up-and-take-my-money.jpg

This looks amazing! Do you have a blog or anything which I can follow? This deserves it’s own place rather than sitting in the Stonehearth forums ;).

By the way, I was thinking when watching the music-less videos, how about you add some radio stations and/or music CDs. Maybe you could set a default playlist and players can input their music into a folder which the game will cycle through playing whilst in the car? I’ll assume you don’t want to get too affiliated with GTA, though.

Oh, and please, please add multiplayer support <3.

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I think because it is a police car scanner talk would suit much better.

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As of right now, sound is my most limited rescoure. Its taking a back seat but functionality is there. My goal is to have dispatcher talk to you but not just random radio chatter, real calls. If I manage to get voice actors on board I’ll start taking donations. At this time like I said sound down the road.

In regards to multiplayer I’ve been programming with the mindset to make it co-op. This is a very long term goal.

I currently don’t have a blog or anything big of that nature. Since the time I can dedicate to the project is random, I just had another child so this had a large impact alsom. :smile:

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i thought you mentioned that before… here’s a belated congratulations! :smile: :baby:

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Hey guys - I’ve been getting a lot of questions about Unity lately. Yes I’m currently porting over to Unity, I’m about 80% done give or take. The asset store has gotten a lot bigger then when I last seen it, and its going to save me a lot of time from reinventing the wheel. I’m also getting asked how to learn to code a lot…

I know from the Unity community this guys pretty useful and for the most part, writes clean, correct code (with no work arounds unlike other ‘tutorials’ you guys might find.)

The Unity tutorials can be rather large, and sometimes to much for new people to take in, but this guy will teach you coding, and making a game from the ground up using the Unity engine if you are really interested. You won’t pick up this guys stuff over night, but give him a look if you really are interested and dedicated to bringing your dream game to life.

PS - Thanks Steve!

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excellent… best of luck, and im sure this will give you a significant surge in productivity… :+1:

oh, and thanks for the tutorials links… :smile:

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In other news I had a few hours to code - I was excited. Completed the arresting progression bar, now you have to stand there and it takes a small amount of time to apply cuffs to someone. They will in the near future have the off chance of attempting to flee from you also.

Also added a basic design for being able to search persons, also with a progression bar, at which a random range of items can be found (drugs, guns, knifes, ID, and more to come I’m sure).

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Coming along quite nicely…

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Sweet, I’ve been meaning to ask/find which engine you’ve been/are going to use.

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Hey guys. Still working when I get the chance. I haven’t had time to make a new video but I’ll talk about some of the things I’ve gotten done.

Tweak’d progression bar for arresting persons.

-Items now also have a progression bar that is used for collection (prompts player, more or less to let the player know rather then just having them pick it up.)

AI cars are driven by physics now rather then a waypoint system. Its going to help down the road with car chases and having the cars respond realistically to pit maneuvers and so forth. Tweaking to make them not have real physics when the player is out of view of them, or range - as to save performance.

Working on implementing a time frame for the game, for example - one of the game modes are going to be doing a “shift” - the player will be given a time of day (or night) the shift will start, and within this time frame, they will be able to accumulate points/score which will save and go over to the next shift. At the end or start of shifts, player will be able to view their stats (arrests, deaths, wrongful arrests, over all score, rank and so forth) players will be able to purchase upgrades also with the points they make.

Right now the list of upgrades is not complete but I figured I would share.

Car upgrades
Ram bar - Able to pit other cars with ease, adds a force factor to the car.

Spot light - Lowers the chance of AI running from you, lowers their accuracy if pointed at them and they attempt to shoot the player.

Drug testing kit (in trunk of car) - Gives the player the ability to test the drugs (at this stand point, it is only worth more points to successfully test a drug, which helps supplement more points)

Partner/K9 - A ride along AI that will follow you about and respond to the situation with you.

Player upgrades
Tazer - Lower points will be rewarded for dead criminals, tazing them if able leads to a higher chance of higher points.

Flashlight attachment for your pistol - Same effect as the police car spot light, slightly less since the lumens are lower.

Basic ballistic vest - In this game, if you are shot, chances are you are done. This will give you the ability to perhaps take a round depending where it hits.

The upgrades are not in place yet, the tazer, rambar, flastlight attachment are complete and in game, but there is no upgrades section yet.

I still haven’t had time to get around to doing the dispatcher to the method I wanted, the ground work it still there - but I keep trying to tackle smaller tasks for the game since I often can’t sit down and focus as much as I want. This limited time also leads to less video updates.

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Hey guys - no the projects not dead! I’ve just been working more on it, then talking about it.

So heres the update.

The dispatch system is done! It currently feeds the location of the call to a dispatch, and is sent to the player by string on the top left corner. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but its fun! A player can simply sit and wait for a call now, or go looking for it. This will be easy when it comes time to put voice acting into place, since I’ll be able to piece together sound clips to feed the player the rough location of the crime this way also. Its a very nice system, and supports future map updates / expansions. It will simply tell you what street its off of, or if its on the corner of a intersecting street (Doyle ave / Long str - for example).

You are now able to arrest and search players via a progress bar. It has to be held to be completed, sometimes criminals will now attempt to flee when you are placing them under arrest!

Searching criminals (and ‘normal’ people also) will have a chance to yield items that are illegal, such as guns, drugs, knives, random weapons. These drop on the ground, and my next step is making is to players take time and are prompted d to collect these items for points.

The player has a map now! No, this isn’t a arcade type game, even though its cube art, you are still not highlighted on the map and need to keep track of where you are, and the crimes ain’t highlighted either - so you need to remember what dispatch said or use your notepad. The map simply serves as a reference to find the street a crime is taking place on.

Player flashlight - you now have some hotkeys up top, and #2 is the flashlight. Later on players will be able to add a light to their pistol, which will prevent them from having to switch, or do a cross-grip to have the light in the left hand, and the pistol in the right at the same time (its almost time to give the players something worth investing points into)

The notepad (still a heavy WIP) will display current crimes taking place (in case you missed the string message), will have BOLOs (be on look out for persons), and past calls to help determine high crime areas.

Whats next?

Making a more enjoyable suspect fleeing/chase.

Adding more types of crimes (long over due, I wanted to have random crime times done by now)

Interaction / prompting to pick up items searched

Information gained from collecting ID (from non-criminal persons at first, then searching for ID from criminals to run in the database afterwards)

Better prompt system to load persons in custody into the Police car.

Things that have taken a back-seat.

Car AI (while mostly complete) it was distracting me from making the foundation of the game. Car is a long term goal. I leave one in to drive around, but no more work has been done on them.

Sound. -.-

Additional small world details (such as news stands, hotdog stands) - any additional world art is just getting in the way of coding for me at this point since I’m doing it all. I want to add depth to the game first, then secondly pretty city items that will suck the player into the over all look.

I might try to record a small update video and post it soon, but don’t hold me to that.

Thanks for reading guys.

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